writing resistance and desire, challenging systems of oppression, and carving spaces for we stories.

20 November 2010

"never again"

This is the first poem I wrote about my mother... a year after she passed away (in 1996)... it took me years to finish it... and it marks for me the beginning of my journey as a poet... It was accepted for publication by WomanSpeak (Caribbean Women's Journal of Writing & Art published in The Bahamas) - and the issue has finally been published after years of hard work!!! Congrats to WomanSpeak Issue 5 2010 and the editor Lynn Sweeting for a beautiful journal!!! I just got my copy and wanted to share this now published piece on conscious vibration.

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never again

Angelique V. Nixon

once I felt ashamed of being my mother’s daughter

but I am not her, and what I have from her is all I needed.

I let all the other things about her I dare not say,

go far away, as her spirit seeks rest and hunts for peace.

once I felt ashamed of being a woman,

because I saw the woman my mother was,

she was all that I did not want to be,

I ran from her and the person she revealed to me.

so ashamed

living over da hill, filling empty stomachs with stories on walks to the well,

2 comments:

Beautiful, brave and very moving poem. Speaking the unspeakable. Most likely quite a few daughters have a love/hate relationship with their mother, in different degrees. So this poem is -at least for me- very recognizable, even though each of us have a different story, a different past, a different childhood, a unique relationship with our mother. Thank you so much for sharing, Angelique:)!

About Me

WriterArtistTeacherScholarActivistPoet. Community Worker. Subversive Radical. Cynical Idealist. Polyrhythmic lover. Cosmic Warrior. Afro-Caribbean. Black. Woman. Trouble Maker. Revolutionary Intellectual in Progress. I have been womanish, long time, and so I dare to imagine a world where people of color can be human and free. I dream and breathe revolution and liberation on many fronts—sexually, spiritually, economically, socially, and radically. I see hetero-sexist patriarchy and white supremacy as preventing movement and advancement for humanity.